It sounded like the perfect pairing: Richard Dreyfuss up on stage discussing his career and the making of "Jaws" before the lights dimmed and the movie played on the screen behind him.
Instead, Dreyfuss used his time on stage at the Cabot Theatre in Beverly Saturday night to spew hatred at both women and transgender people he just wouldn't stop and people began to walk out, even if they had paid up to $125 for a ticket.
Beth Carroll, who went to hear him talk about his movie about a killer shark, left after 20 minutes, the first time, she says, she ever walked out of a theater like that.
"He started with women should be submissive and escalated pretty quickly from there," she said. In a discussion on the Cabot Facebook page, people added he started discussing his objecting to ten-year-olds deciding what gender to be - in response to a question about the #metoo movement.
"We left by the time he hit his transphobic rhetoric, which only took a few minutes," Carroll said.
On Sunday, Cabot Theatre Executive Director J. Casey Soward e-mailed out an apology to people who bought tickets:
We deeply regret that Mr. Dreyfuss's comments during the event were not in line with the values of inclusivity and respect that we uphold at the Cabot. We understand that his remarks were distressing and offense to many of our community members, and for that, we sincerely apologize.
At the Cabot, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive environment for all members of our community. The views expressed by Mr. Dreyfuss do no reflect our beliefs, and we do not endorse them in any way.
We take full responsibility for the oversight in not anticipating the direction of the conversation and for any discomfort it caused.
We are taking immediate steps to ensure that such an incident does not occur again. This includes more rigorous vetting of our event participants and more proactive communication strategies to keep our audience informed.
Full copy of the Cabot e-mail:
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Comments
Pretty absurd
By deselby
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 12:35pm
that people are demanding refunds.
On the other hand, demonstrating the flinty Yankee values you'd expect from an audience at The Cabot in Beverly.
More bigotry?
By Lee
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 12:59pm
Refund requests. Is that all that bothers you?
Flinty?
By John Costello
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 1:21pm
Tell me you haven't been to The Cabot without having ever been to the Cabot.
I live on the South Shore and have carted myself up there 3 times for events.
What a great place.
Are there people from the Beverly Farms / Manchester / Magnolia set involved there. Yes. Who cares? They've done a great job for a place that could have been a dollar store.
Go to the mall and enjoy your Glenn Powell movie.
PS - F Richard Dreyfus. He has been an ahole for years. There's a reason why he was cast as the opposition in An American President.
not really sure what they expected
By anon
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 2:25pm
He is in fact well known for his "anti-PC" comments. I'm not really sure what they expected / I find it hard to believe that nobody on the staff fired up youtube to look at what he was saying.
My guess is that he was available for cheap because he's not very popular due to his mouth, and the theater had a 'discussion' with him about what he could discuss, and he decided to screw that and lecture the 'libs'.
Probably should have written into his contract "comments should only be about your filmography and specifically Jaws. No discussion about religion, politics, gender identity, or other personal opinions not directly related to the films you have been in."
I think they expected him to
By Scratchie
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 6:48pm
I think they expected him to talk about Jaws but maybe I missed the point of the ticketed event.
The Cabot is a treasure
By Reggae Ambassador
Tue, 05/28/2024 - 9:14am
Well said, John.
Some great programming and not at all WASPY.
did you bother to read the post?
By Vicki
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 2:15pm
I read the attached statement, and there's nothing about refunds. The only person talking about refunds is you.
Adam's post pointed out that some of the people who walked out had paid a lot for their tickets, because they thought they would be getting something interesting, and thought the promised event would be worth the money. They walked out anyway, because they weren't there for misogyny and transphobia.
(I suppose you're now going to scream that it's not actually illegal for you to be aggressively and stupidly wrong on the internet. It may not be fraud, legally, for an actor to promise a movie discussion and instead get up and rant about an unrelated topic. But it's not honest.)
did you read the comments to the Facebook posting linked to?
By deselby
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 2:57pm
People are demanding refunds.
Absurd to go to a talk and demand a refund if the speaker says something you don't like.
I'm not a big fan of celebrity talks. I went to was A Night with Gregory Peck at the Huntington (1997). A few years later I saw Norman Mailer in Cambridge.
Frankly I would have been amused if either went off the rails and started spouting off about (pick your racial/ethnic/gender epithet) in an epic rant.
Come to think of it, I was there when Tom Friedman was hit with a pie at the BPL. He's a trouper, came back to finish his talk.
I'm reserving judgment on Dreyfuss until I see the tape.
He was there
By dan r
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 3:03pm
to talk about his role in "Jaws", not to hold forth on politics or anything else, and to talk about anything else is a dereliction of his contracted reason for being there, period. You're only defending this because you like what he had to say, since you are a clown busy being clownish.
Trans bigots and mysogynists stick together
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 5:11pm
No surprise to see you surfacing from your slimehole to defend your fellow transbigoted misogynist.
I took a gander at the Facebook comments
By fungwah
Tue, 05/28/2024 - 12:07pm
and what I saw was people saying that the theater ushers told them to email and request a refund.
If that's the case, it seems reasonable that people would do so.
"they thought they would be getting something interesting"
By Wiffleball
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 5:54pm
Don't buy things with the Monkey's Paw Visa card.
where did you
By msophelia
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 2:58pm
read 'people demanding refunds'? i for one walked out because i had no interest in being part of the event when Dreyfuss showed his colors. if i could get my money back from him, i would. as it is, i won't ask The Cabot for a refund. in the current comments on the FB post linked, as of 3 pm Monday, i see 1 person saying they want their money back. 1.
that commenter frequently relies on half truths
By berkleealum
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 5:53pm
to add a veneer of sensibility to whatever foolishness it would have spouted anyway. we should all learn to ignore it.
It bothers me more that
By Anon
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 4:52pm
It bothers me more that apparently no one stood up and said anything in open disagreement. It's important to argue against statements one ethically or morally disagrees with.
there was some pushback
By msophelia
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 11:03pm
in the moment. several people called out 'that's not okay' when Dreyfuss explained that he wouldn't take direction or suggestions from Streisand because she's a woman and women are supposed to be submissive. there were other comments that people booed or disagreed with. wish more people had. there was also a contingent cheering him on.
Go ahead, deselby..
By Friartuck
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 5:15pm
Shoot up some cases of Bud Light while in a fit of masturbatory delight and tell us all about it. We know you want to .
Really
By Luke Warmer
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 5:48pm
Can't wait for the culture war to end and the "meh well merp that escalated quickly meh" stance to become politically impossible.
So Richard Dreyfus decided to become solidify his role as a rightwing cartoon.
I have to believe legitimate criticism of the Twitter/tech non-thinking Left is going to come some day; and when it does, its going to be from a generation of actually serious people who are good on facts and humane/updated enough to not invoke bigotry and to speak clearly enough that even a liberal go-alongs won't be able to chase virtue squirrels.
By the time that happens though, rent for a small studio apartment in Brighton will cost 11, 000.50 per
month.
Well...
By lbb
Tue, 05/28/2024 - 9:38am
...those certainly are words.
the Twitter/tech non-thinking
By Scratchie
Tue, 05/28/2024 - 10:02am
What in the sweet chicken-fried fuck are you talking about?
There's plenty of legitimate criticism of the Left
By fungwah
Tue, 05/28/2024 - 12:08pm
But since most of it tends to come from the Left, people on the right don't seem to want to talk about it.
For $125, I will tell you how
By anon
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 7:18pm
For $125, I will tell you how the movie ends.
Where`s the shark when you
By anon
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 7:22pm
Where`s the shark when you need him?
Dreyfus was ...
By jmeltzer
Tue, 05/28/2024 - 4:47pm
jumping it.
More details on what he said
By adamg
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 9:47pm
The Hollywood Reporter fills us in, notes he came out wearing a dress to a Taylor Swift song.
I saw a short video of his entrance
By merlinmurph
Tue, 05/28/2024 - 8:49am
About two minutes worth, before he started ranting. What was with the dress? Very weird entrance.....
The event description from the Cabot
By ckd
Mon, 05/27/2024 - 11:32pm
(via archive.org)
Sounds like the "memorable evening" part was 100% delivered upon.
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